It is known to categorize callers to call centers and, based on the categorization, route a call to a particular agent or groups of agents. For example, one rudimentary method to accomplish this is to provide different call in numbers to different classes of callers. For example, “gold” customers (e.g., for an airline, those who fly over a particular amount of miles or who spend over a particular amount of money) may be provided one call in number and other customers may be provided a different call in number.
As another example, callers may be initially provided a menu, where the menu item chosen dictates how the call is routed. These types of menus are familiar, such as “press 1 for technical support on home products; press 2 for technical support on small business products; press 3 for sales.”
In some examples, agents are pre-classified within a call routing system, such that calls from a customer classified in a particular way (e.g., a “gold” customer) is automatically routed to an agent classified as one who deal with “gold” customers. This routing may occur based on discerned characteristics of the caller, without the caller having to take any particular action such as calling a special phone number or making a particular menu choice.
For example, calls may be routed to particular agents based on classifications of the agents by skill or by “split.” For example, a particular agent may be an agent who can handle Spanish or English calls. Another example is an agent who is statically determined to deal with Platinum customers. Conventionally, such routing is encoded into advanced call distribution systems and is known as “skills-based routing.”
There are some call routing systems in which dynamically route calls, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,133,520. In U.S. Pat. No. 7,133,520, the dynamic routing is generally based on how occupied are particular agents at particular times.